The Modern Hamlet
by trajectory989
Summary: This is a tale of those who, in today's day and age, show vacillation.
1. Foreword

Foreword

To those that might wonder why I would care to write such a piece as this here and now, I either have nothing to say or I may tug your ear right off that wonderful and terrible thing called a head. It is not my conscious intention to write of myself beyond a single folly I knowingly have turned tragic flaw, but I digress. So those that wish to partake only in the fiction may simply move onward. Those remaining: I will try to keep introductions short.

For the great majority of all the life I can actively remember, I was raised in a suburban neighborhood outside a small city. My immediate family spans a similar cover, including but my parents and a single, elder brother. Although I can comfortably say that I am not one to seek out social endeavors, I have found a handful of people I was acquainted with become my friends throughout time. With just these few interactions, it might be the apparent thing to say that this sounds of an isolated lifestyle devoid of many diverse ideas, but I treat the reader to hear me out.

When I was young, I plainly hated technology due to my father's influence. What little I knew I did not dare to expand. In my cockiness, I even judged those proficient with any of the large number of means with scorn. As time harbored experience, however, I grew akin to everyday use. That anger turned somewhat into more of a fear, something I still regard technology with to this day. However, this is exactly what made me want to learn about it, and the more I understood, the more I respected (and feared) it. To this day, my immediate family concerns me with most technical issues, but what does any of this have to do with the rest of my life?

The answer is simple: this such experience, being only one of many like it, has shown me how to pry open my mind. Those friends I had mentioned were from different walks of life, and, consequently, have begun a number of conflicts between each other and within me. I have seen the points of view from rich and from poor. I have seen, with help, from the eyes of African Americans, whites, men, women, young, old, collectivist, libertarian, and so many more. I am grateful to have had such a wide array of ideas in my youth, but as I am becoming an adult, I have taken the time to consider all of these viewpoints and I have been driven into concern.

As anyone knows, there have been a plethora of problems brought on by our mere existence which, to-date, there is no clear cut answer to. Although my mind first thinks of political matters, I fully well know that these questions exist beyond the governmental realm and are often more dire when they are personal. Perhaps it is a fear within me that has made it somewhat imperative to find a solution to these problems for, so I believe, as long as they remain unanswered, the problems which they represent will only worsen. But without clear right and wrong, I have been often driven to sleeplessness and its bigger, badder uncle, indecision.

For some time, I figured others had considered such troubles lightly. What is the meaning of life? To live as some may say openly. With such an unsought, lighthearted answer, I have feared that one or myself would simply go on with business, not caring to make more sense or meaning, and thus satisfaction. Without care, the very response in this case, as many, is nullified: one would end up making so little of life that they do not live. But as time would have it, I have met and intimately talked with individuals to know that there are others, countless, that all feel this same fear. This pressure and stress that underlies even our most unwary days.

Of course, being human, I have been and will be indecisive on many things. This very story in fact is me escaping from greater duties until I have sufficient thought and persuasive fear as to address them. Hence why I am beginning this story at a time when I am most busy! Knowing that everyone sees stress in life towards its responsibilities, I mean to create a tale both entertaining as to initially annul that fear, but capable of returning the reader back to doing whatever activity they find productive and ultimately satisfying, by simply reminding them in their entertainment that fear will course in their hearts at the consequences.

So without further-ado, please enjoy and be persuaded by the short, slice-of-life stories to come.


	2. Jarek Part 1: Youth

**Jarek**

Part 1: Youth

Realization returned back from the shimmering figure of the moon dancing among the clouds of late night passing by to the unkempt windows of the school bus. I realized that the half asleep children all about me were starting to drift into a true stupor as I flipped about my music library. Once I was satisfied by choosing a nice, soft tune, I opened Snapchat to talk with Malorie. Quickly, I took a picture of my lit face among the darkened background of the bus and initiated another conversation about the schmucks that surrounded us everyday. As time passed, I, too, formed heavy eyelids, and without much attention was asleep.  
Suddenly a voice woke me, and the blinding lights of the bus shone through my still closed eyes. As I opened them, I noticed the school in the distance and moaned as I stretched myself out.  
"We're here" said one of the counselors. My friends and I all groggily got up and grabbed our garments and instruments as we walked out of the bus. We exchanged final farewells before parting ways. My mom waited for me in the car.  
"How was the game?" She inquired.  
"Another game. We lost of course" I replied as I set my trumpet and bag into the car. A short, almost inaudible scoff from her affirmed that lack of surprise from either of us. The rest of the way home was silent, and I watched random videos from YouTube until I went to sleep.

The next day, I woke up at about noon, and I went downstairs to see my parents leaving to visit relatives. They assigned me the task of cutting the grass. So I threw on some clothes to match my labor, turned on some music, and went outside to do the chore. Once it was completed, I returned to the abode to relax the rest of the day. The Sunday after proved similar, but the work was rather related to my studies (some algebra and some world history) and took place in the evening.

As for the next Monday, things seemed particularly norm. The alarm went off at the ungodly hour of six-thirty before I rushed to clothe myself and make my way to yet another school bus. Earbuds procured their way into my lobes before I settled in the seat, and they were not removed until the voice of my homeroom teacher spoke.  
"Good Morning everyone. I have a few pamphlets to hand out." To this, he started passing about some fliers and other papers before rambling on about the same announcements that came out of his mouth on a daily basis. Each pamphlet showed some activity that I decided unfavorable. One read "Outdoor Odyssey: Mentoring kids through Adventure," and another indicated that student council was hosting the Red Cross in about a week for a day of giving blood. A third mentioned something about county band. The last was a broad invitation to try and get more kids to join the French club.  
Soon after, the bell rang and classes went on as usual. Most were plainly uninteresting. In one class, we had to put up with A.J's backwards political ranting on how the "Slavs are a master race" until the entire class shut him up. The highlight was world history at the end of the day because Mrs. Ivan always teaches with vivacity.

But on the bus headed for home, as I thought about my homework and Malorie and everything else that had preoccupied me throughout the day, a most uneasy feeling came about. This was the first time it occurred to me that the void that was my evening was unsettling to me. Every day that I did not have band after school, I had went home and in my boredom flipped about the channels on television, but today something didn't settle right in my gut as I thought about it.  
I started to think about the food I had recently eaten and if it could have upset my stomach. After all, the chicken bites on a bun served for lunch that day could have been under-cooked. And in that resolve, I finished my trip home and forgot about the whole thing before I even walked through the front door.

As I skipped past Fox News, I looked down onto my phone that was currently in iFunny to notice that Malorie sent me a snap. It was her face, slightly moping, with a single phrase: Bored. With a slight grin, I sent back my deliriously indifferent face and the word "Same." The conversation continued with ramblings on about any sort of thing: from the Cat in the Hat to Somatic's Thymatron. The dream that came to me that night was then of the strangest proportion. I found myself in a room with an abnormally large number of doors leading out of it. Each one opened before me and lead to barren nothingness. It was then that I turned round to get smacked in the face by the Cat in the Hat with his major league baseball bat. I appeared in some sort of therapy room where Malorie's mom was hooking up a Thymatron to our schools SameLOVE club president, Robert. Then, I was falling next to a rope that for some reason I never tried to grab a hold of. Once I hit the ground, I saw through the eyes of Hitler at the Nuremberg rally and turned my head left but to see A.J in a Nazi uniform playing some middle-eastern song I could not comprehend at which point I shot myself and woke up.


End file.
